If I Should Die Before I Wake
by soulback
Summary: Ten years after his death, Neil goes back to visit the Poets.  If you like 'where are they now' and alternate ending fics, this is probably the thing for you!
1. Chapter 1

**I hope you enjoy this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it, because it was a LOT of fun, if a bit depressing in places. It starts a little slow - please bare with, the background info is important. ****Oh, and the ending - it's not a plot twist, because a seven year old could come up with something more surprising; I** **actually hope you see it coming. (Obviously I can't let my fics out into the world without apologising profusely for them first - please treat them kindly, they mean well.)  
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**Reviews are** **the stuff dreams are made of.**

**Disclaimer: not mine, never was.**

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><p>Being dead sucks.<p>

Neil sighs as he walks along the beach, careful not to trip over any waves. A group of teenagers stampede to the water and he braces himself as they pass through him; he's too tired (in an existential sense, of course) to move out of their way, though he shudders as their flailing arms and legs fill his space.

He's effectively weightless – a form without mass, a body without parts. No longer being made of any real _stuff_, Neil has no effect on the world. He can't open doors, because he can't turn the handle or push against the wood. He can't pick things up, kick them, or change their shape. He can't walk through walls, or people, or even through _water_ because compared to him, everything is solid, impermeable - which is why he's avoiding the waves now. Instead he just sort of floats along in the spaces between things – not so much flying but _bouncing_ in the air, like the astronauts he saw on the tv show about the moon landing, caught on a draft of wind. He makes no impression, no imprints. He's a shadow.

But in the unfair world of the dead among the living, people can walk through _him_, and where their body intersects with his grey globby frame he sure can feel it.

Neil remembers the first time that happened, all those years ago when he was still hanging around his parents' house. He was watching his mother cook dinner one evening in the kitchen; she reached out for a jar of sauce and Neil didn't have time to move before her arm went straight through where he was standing. She sneezed, but otherwise seemed unfazed. Neil, on the other hand, could feel _bone_ and _muscle _and _blood_ at every point where her real human arm intersected with his shadow. It freaked him out so much he actually screamed. He's made a point to try and avoid direct contact with people since then.

Unless, of course – Neil spies an old man walking along the sand carrying a bag of hot chips. The man is clearly looking for a place to sit, and Neil anticipates that he will choose the low green bench under the palm tree. Neil can't resist hot chips. He bounds lightly across the beach, thankful for once that his feet don't sink into the sand, and he slides onto the bench.

Not a moment too soon. The man (quite unawares) sits on top of Neil, and where the man's real stomach intersects the place where Neil's stomach should be, he feels hunger. And this man is _really _hungry. Neil savours the feeling.

Funny, when Neil was a teenager, hunger was something to be sated as soon as possible, so that he could get back to more pressing matters such as forging letters of permission and teasing his roommate. Now he appreciates hunger as the beautiful counterpart to that other human feeling, _full_. And he's gotten lucky – the man is the same height as Neil so that, when the man holds his head still, Neil can actually taste the hot chips – the fat, crunch, the soft potato, the salt – in his mouth.

The weird, weird feeling of taking on another person's body will always lose to the feeling of hot chips. For a few blissful moments, too rare in Neil's otherwise senseless death, he is completely satisfied.

Then the man finishes the chips, and Neil is brought back to reality. He starts to feel other things in the man's body, like the heartburn he's suffering from eating too quickly. Neil can also feel the man's shallow breathing, so obvious to him now that he's been ten years without lungs of his own. _This guy isn't healthy_. Partly Neil feels sorry for the man; partly he feels frustrated that he is unable to help the guy; and partly he really wishes the man would move along, so that he can stop feeling these things.

When the old man finally gets up to go, wheezing at the exertion of simply standing, Neil stretches out his legs and continues watching the ocean. He'll stay there till sunset – no matter that sunset isn't for another six hours. He can wait. Then he'll make his way to the airport somehow, sneak aboard a plane, and head north. He's had enough of California. He wants to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Nggggh Neil/Todd angst. That is all.**

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**Disclaimer: not mine etc.**

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><p>There was no question in Neil's mind that Todd Anderson was the first person he wanted to see in Vermont, even though, as the plane landed and he hitched a ride to Welton, he felt almost <em>physically<em> sick with nervousness. In some way he supposed that all his own future happiness depended on Todd; on Todd being healthy and well and not suffering too much after the death of his best friend ten years ago.

Neil still remembers Todd's face in their cold dorm room that morning when Charlie told him that Neil was dead. Neil wanted to scream – he _did _scream – that he wasn't dead, he's alive, he's _right here, right here, right in front of you_ – but the living don't see the dead, let alone hear their cries, and in the end Neil could do nothing about it except _look_ at Todd; feel his pain and be unable to change it; which, as far as Neil was concerned, was a fate worse than death.

Neil tries not to think about that now, as he stands outside the front of Todd's small house in the suburbs – the same house Todd moved in to when he first left school – and then there he is, walking along the pavement. Neil can't help it: his mind shakes as he takes stock of the man.

For he is a man now, Neil realises, with his glasses and soft beard and battered briefcase, ink smudges on his hand and blackboard chalk on his sleeve. As he fishes in his pocket for keys, Neil stands so close he can hear him breathing and he would give anything in the world to be able to touch his face, to rest his head on his shoulder, to at least, _at least_, let him know he's there. But he can't and he can't and he can't.

All Neil can do is follow Todd into the house like an uninvited guest and sit across from him in the living room, stare at him staring out the window while he rests his feet comfortable on the low table.

This could have been their house, Neil thinks; their coffee stains on the table, their comfortable silence, their old copies of Shakespeare and new copies of Arthur Miller on the shelves. As Todd continues to stare out the window, Neil gets on his knees to read the spines of the books on the shelf; longingly traces the titles of the poets and dramatists \ with his finger. He likes that Todd has taken an interest in drama.

And then he sees her. Staring back at him in the photo on the shelf, wearing a wedding dress, her arms wrapped around Todd.

Todd's wife.

As if on cue, a woman enters the room and crosses the floor to kiss Todd.

"Baby, I'm so glad you're _home_."

Neil peers out from behind the couch, trying not to be seen; forgetting entirely that he is invisible and that he could actually smack her in the face if he wanted to and she would be none the wiser.

She is young – a couple of years younger than Todd, he would guess – and very pretty: tall, thin, with brown hair tied up in a perfect bun on top of her head, and delectably high cheekbones. Neil isn't sure he likes that. No – he _knows_ he doesn't like that. He's jealous and to hell with it. If Todd felt that he was healed enough to get a wife, a nice normal dull looking wife, Neil could handle that; but apparently Todd has moved on enough in the past ten years to attract a stunner.

It can't get any worse.

It does.

The Wife flops down into the chair opposite Todd, the chair Neil was just sitting in, and props her feet up on the table. She sighs as she pulls a sheaf of paper from her bag, and frowns at it.

"Will you run through this with me tonight?" she asks. "I'm really nervous about the part."

_Todd's wife is an actor_.

"Oh – oh, sure," says Todd, quietly. He smiles, and gets up to kiss The Wife on the cheek. Then he excuses himself and goes to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Neil wants to get angry. Back when he was alive, he would have shouted and kicked doors and broken things. Now – now, he just falls to the floor, defeated. Todd has moved on. Todd can live without him.

Neil ends up staying at the Anderson's house for a week. He tells himself he's hanging around to make sure that Todd is happy – happy with life and happy with his wife – but when Todd _is _happy, or at least seems to be, Neil wishes it could be any other way. So he leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

**Cameron.**

**Reviews are WHAT DO YOU THINK OF CAMERON?**

**Disclaimer: do we still need these things?**

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><p>Richard Cameron is easy to find. His name is on the front of the small town office – Cameron, Cameron, and Brown. Neil almost decides to give Cameron a miss, but it's not like he has anything else to do for the rest of his life, so when a small blonde woman in a dark suit pushes through the glass door, Neil follows right behind her.<p>

The front foyer of the office is clean and impersonal. The blonde woman sits down in front of a typewriter and sighs, as Neil floats past her and down the hallway.

The two doors leading off to the left are closed, but the door on the right is open, and at eight thirty in the morning, Cameron is already behind the desk.

Neil watches him from the doorway; the shock of red hair gives him away, but Neil thinks he's changed more than any of them. His grey shirt is wrinkled and rolled up to the elbows, and coupled with the shadow on his chin, gives the impression that he's been there all night. His eyes are tired, and there's a hint of grey – _grey _– around his temples.

Neil remembers Cameron as being loud, obnoxious, and ambitious; annoying, but nevertheless _alive_; but the twenty-something year old professional sitting at the brown oak desk looks like he had the life sucked out of him long ago.

"I know how you feel," says Neil, as he enters the room. He folds himself up onto a blue chair against the far wall, and continues to watch Cameron, contemplatively.

Nothing much happens in the morning. The blonde lady brings Cameron a cup of coffee, and he barely looks at her as he mumbles, "Thanks." The coffee seems to slough off some of his stupor, though, and he starts writing up notes and organising papers busily. The phone rings a few times, nothing out of the ordinary. He has another coffee for lunch. Neil wants to leave; but he never gave Cameron much time in life, and he feels a little guilty for it. So he stays.

In the afternoon, as Neil is just starting to 'doze off', the phone rings again.

"Richard Cameron speaking."

Then Cameron's gripping the phone tightly, as if he's trying to strangle the person at the other end.

"What – _what_? – well, do you have any proof? – no, I need proof – I'm not paying you to tell me what you _think_, buddy – don't bother calling back until you have evidence – " Cameron drops the phone back onto its base. "Fuck's _sake_," he adds, clutching his hair in his hands.

Neil sits up in his chair.

Cameron holds his hand to his head, as if checking for a temperature. Then he opens his desk drawer, and pulls out a silver frame. He stares at the photo in the frame, his face impassive. Neil floats across the room to get a closer look. To his surprise, the photo is of Richard and a woman – and quite a beautiful woman at that – and the woman is kissing Cameron on the cheek. Obviously they are together.

That's when Neil notices the pale tan line around Cameron's ring finger.

Cameron hurls the picture across the room; it hits the wall, and the glass fractures into a thousand sharp pieces. His shoulders slump, and he buries his face in his hands. He is crying.

This, _this _is why being alive sucks, thinks Neil.

And yet Neil isn't sure he wouldn't rather be alive right now, as he uselessly puts an arm around his old friend.


	4. Chapter 4

**I kinda picture Knox as this Finn from Glee kinda kid. **

**Reviews are I WANT THEM_._**

**Disclaimer: oh well, will disclaim anyway. DPS not mine.**

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><p>"I should have married Chet Danbury!"<p>

Neil hears Chris before he even climbs through the open front window of the small suburban house.

"Why didn't you, then? Why the hell didn't you?" Knox shouts back.

Neil pauses under the window sill, not daring to go inside.

"You used to be – but now you're so – nnggh!"

"What does that even mean? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to _be_?"

"Ahh, domestic bliss," says Neil ruefully, to a passing cat. Is this what's happened to all his friends? Is this what growing old means?

The front door swings open and there is a heavy tread on the porch as Knox storms outside. He seems taller, his shoulders broader in his checked red shirt. He wears a blue cap, and brown boots. Neil isn't sure but he thinks, he _thinks_ Knox Overstreet is – a _lumberjack_?

A flash of blonde appears at the door, as Chris stands with her hands on her hips to holler further slurs. Knox stomps across the front lawn to a pick-up truck in the street – it obviously used to be red, as evidenced by the deeper colour around the hub caps, but for the most part has faded to pink in the sun – and calls out over his shoulder, "I don't need this!"

Neil gasps, catching sight of the very obvious baby bump that Chris' floral apron can't disguise – then runs over to the truck, and jumps in the trailer, just as Knox pulls away from the kerb in a flurry of wheels. Oblivious to the ghost of Neil hitching a ride in the back, Knox hits pedal to the metal and roars out of town, across a small bridge, and finally pulls to a stop next to a small creek.

Through the dusty window of the cab, Neil sees Knox slam his fist against the wheel, and swear. He sits there a moment, eyes closed, then sighs. He hops out of the truck and walks down to the water's edge; flops onto the grass and tilts his head back.

Again, this would be a good moment to be alive, thinks Neil, swinging gingerly out of the truck and sitting down next to his friend. He seems to be doing a lot of this sort of thing today.

"I wish I had your guts, Neil," says Knox, and Neil nearly falls over at the shock of being addressed – until he realises that Knox is talking to himself.

"No, you don't," Neil manages to whisper. "You really, really don't."

They sit side by side for a long time, and Neil wonders if this is really it for Knox and his childhood sweetheart; but as the sun starts to set and the shadows grow long, Knox straightens his cap, brushes the grass off his jeans, and gets back into the truck. This time, Neil rides shotgun.

Back in the house, Knox flings the front door open, leaving it wide open for Neil to drift through. He catches Chris from behind, puts his hands over her eyes. She squeals, and turns around.

"I'm still mad at you, Knox Overstreet."

"Oh," says Knox. He pulls the cap off his head, giving her his best hang-dog look.

Chris sighs and puts a hand on her hip. "If you think I'm going to take you back just because you're making those eyes, you must be crazy."

"I am crazy," says Knox, falling to his knees and holding his hands up in penance. "Crazy in love with you. So will you have me anyway, Chris Overstreet?"

Chris giggles, and swats at him with her apron. "Of course I will, Knoxy."

Knox kisses her stomach in delight. "And you didn't mean what you said about Chet?"

"Who's Chet?" says Chris. Knox gets to his feet and lifts her up in his arms, light as a feather. She puts her hands around his neck, and kisses him. He smiles contentedly.

Neil leaves them to it. As the sun drops below the horizon and his sleepy little town turns blue, he arrives at the station and hops on the first train to New York.


	5. Chapter 5

**Pitts.**

**This is my second favourite thing I've ever written_._**

**Reviews are PITTS WANTS REVIEWS.**

**Disclaimer: DPS not mine.**

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><p>"Neil!"<p>

At first Neil doesn't even hear his name being called in the crowded streets of the Big Apple. It's not possible, it's just not possible.

"Neil! Neil Perry! Behind you! _Hey_!"

Neil stops in his tracks.

Someone _is_ calling his name. Someone is calling for _him_. After being dead for ten years, it feels weird – weird how familiar his name sounds and yet how he's very nearly forgotten it. No one calls him anymore. He turns around.

And there, standing three feet away from him, wearing a ripped t-shirt and a tattered pair of shorts and covered with blood, is Gerard Pitts, grinning like an idiot.

Neil jumps him in the middle of the street, knocks him over with the force of his embrace, and for a moment Neil is so overjoyed to see Gerard Freaking Pitts that he doesn't even register that he is _touching_ Pitts, touching and holding and not being inhabited. He can feel his clothes, his skin, his coolness. Neil pulls away.

"You're _dead_."

Pitts spreads his hands before him, smiling.

"Apparently so."

"Not _you_, Pittsy. Anyone but you. You're too – how did you even – "

"I can't believe you're here, Neil. I was just walking along and out of the corner of my eye I see these damn eyebrows, and it _is_ you. You nearly scared me to death. Here, in New York City of all places. I walked past you and I came this close to not seeing you, can you believe it?"

"But what happened to you?"

"Oh." Pitts indicates his t-shirt and shorts. "I got mauled by a lion."

"You're a – lion tamer?"

"Pilot. Well, _was_," Pitts corrects himself. "Anyway, listen. Got to dash, but I'm sure I'll see you around!"

"Wait! Where are you going?"

"I have a date!" Pitts calls over his shoulder.

"A _date_? What – with a _dead person_? Pitts, you're – "

But Pitts is already slipping away into the crowd. Neil tries to push his way through, to no avail. Pitts is gone, leaving Neil to stare at the place his old friend occupied just a moment ago. He's alone again in New York City, alone again in death.

" – crazy," Neil finishes, "absolutely crazy." He shakes his head.

There's something in the idea, though. Neil is just wondering if he can wait till Todd dies, when a blue balloon floats past and seconds later a young girl dashes through Neil and onto the busy road.


	6. Chapter 6

**...and this is my most favourite thing I've ever written. If I have the energy I am going to write spin-offs of my own fic.**

**(The chapter beginnings and endings get a bit overlappy here, I wrote the last few chapters in one go and didn't make proper breaks.)**

**Reviews are - I have nothing original to say, I just like reviews.**

**Disclaimer: DPS isn't mine. Or it would've gone in a completely different direction.**

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><p>Neil is just wondering if he can wait till Todd dies, when a blue balloon floats past and seconds later a young girl dashes through Neil and onto the busy road. A bus comes bearing down on the girl. The busdriver frantically tries to break in time as the girl looks at the bus, seemingly unable to move.<p>

And then, as if out of nowhere, a flash of red and gold swirls about the girl. She is whisked off the road and placed gently on the pavement in front of the mother, who cries as she hugs her little girl.

A whisper ripples through the crowd. "Nuwanda! It's Nuwanda!"

_Nuwanda_. Now there's a name Neil hasn't heard in a while. The red and gold momentarily slows enough for Neil to catch sight of a lightning bolt on the figure's chest, and without a second's further thought, he grabs Nuwanda's arm. Then they're hurtling through the sky, above the city skyline, brushing through low white clouds.

"Curiouser and curiouser," says Neil to a passing pigeon.

'Nuwanda' lands on the balcony of a penthouse in Manhattan, and Neil just manages to squeeze through the door after him.

"You're a genius, Stevie," Charlie calls out as he loosens the cape from his neck, and flops onto a brown leather couch. He unhitches the pair of enormous gold boots and removes them carefully, placing them neatly on the carpet. Tendrils of smoke spiral from beneath them.

"Did the adjustments work?"

Neil's imaginary heart leaps into his figurative throat as he realises who 'Stevie' is. He follows Charlie into the kitchen where Steven Meeks is sitting at a table that is covered with papers, notebooks, bits of metal, and a glue gun. Meeks looks exactly as he did ten years ago, albeit with even more curly hair and a new pair of glasses.

"Smooth as," says Charlie, resting his hand comfortably on Steven's neck. "I stopped a girl from being hit by a bus, and was out of there in a second flat." He looks over Steve's shoulder at a sketch pad. "Far out, what's _this_?"

"Just a design I've been working on," says Steven, yawning. He leans back into the chair, and stretches. "_Bear Shark No Match For Nuwanda_," he says, reading an invisible newspaper headline.

Charlie's eyes widen. "You think you can make this?"

Neil takes a look at the drawing in front of Meeks – it seems to be some kind of contraption for breathing underwater, with a harpoon sticking out the front and a propeller at the back. So _this _is what Dalton and Meeks are up to?

"It could take a few months to build. But one day – " Steven yawns again.

Charlie massages his shoulders lightly. "You're a genius. You know that?"

Steven snorts. "Yes, Sir!"

"I'm serious. I just wear the costume – "

" – well, it looks better on you," says Steven.

" – that's true. But you're – " Charlie sighs. He tips Steven's head back gently and kisses him upside down on the mouth.

"Holy cow!" Neil trips over nothing in surprise. Blushing, he scrambles to get to his feet with his eyes closed, biting back giggles as he exits the kitchen and falls onto the couch.

_That_ is new information. Neil looks at "Nuwanda's" flying boots, and wonders how long Charlie and Steven have been – whatever they've been doing. And how did he not _know_ that about Charlie? Sure, Meeks, he's never been that close to Meeks, but _Charlie_ – Charlie's his best friend. Why did Charlie never mention it to him? What else doesn't he know about his friends?

Suddenly it's not so funny.

"We should go out," Neil hears Charlie say. The apartment is too small to not hear them talking.

"Great," says Steven. "You going to change?"

"No, I thought I might go in the suit. _Some _people like it," says Charlie, voice dripping with innuendo and entendre.

"Oh, look, it's got a rip in the sleeve," fusses Steven. "I've got to mend that."

"Later!" says Charlie. "For tonight – " He doesn't finish his sentence as he leaps into the bedroom.

Neil wonders if, underneath all Meeks' inventions, Charlie really has super powers. He considers staying in their flat for the night, but then decides that wouldn't be particularly _safe_, all things considered, so he goes into the kitchen and waits by the front door, watching Meeks carefully tidy his papers away.

Charlie emerges from the bedroom dressed in decidedly more appropriate attire, and Neil sees what Meeks doesn't – Charlie slipping a small black box into his trouser pocket.

"Oh dear God," Neil says aloud.

"Shall we go?" asks Charlie, smiling.

There is nowhere else for Neil to stand except right at the door, to guarantee he will be able to leave the flat, and so Charlie has to walk through him. Neil rues the invasion of his friend's body like this but he deems it necessary.

But as Charlie passes through Neil and sneezes, Neil gasps – the beating heart, the surging blood, the endorphins tingling at the ends of his nerves like a user's high – Neil can actually _feel_ the happiness in Charlie's body. It's a sensation Neil had forgotten but suddenly remembers, like light flooding a darkened room – it's the way he felt standing on the stage at his very first rehearsal; it's the way Todd made him feel sometimes when he thought he could hardly breathe; and it's the way Steven is making Charlie feel now.

Neil doesn't even hesitate as he squirms past them down the stairs – mercifully, the lift is broken – and lines himself up first in front of Charlie, and then in front of Meeks, over and over down the flight of stairs like a kid at the beach, bracing for each new wave then laughing delightedly as the water hits –

"Is it just me, or is it cold in here?" asks Steven, sneezing violently.

"Just you, Stevie," says Charlie, rubbing his nose and smiling as he pulls Steven in close under his arm, and Neil nearly explodes as the two of them pass through him together. He wonders how they can possibly stand to be in their own bodies all day every day, when right now he could literally – well, figuratively – die of happiness.

"Where would you like to go, my love?"

Neil marvels at the way they walk hand-in-hand down the street and no one bats an eyelid. He's torn between wanting to follow them for the rest of the evening, and wanting to go back to double triple quadruple check that Todd really is happy.


	7. Chapter 7

**So here's the final chapter. Eek! Remember I said about this not being a plot-twist? It's really not. I just happen to think it fits well with the story. I'm not sure I did the thing justice, though - it's a bit heavier-handed than I usually go for. What do you think?**

**Disclaimer: DPS still not mine, the end.  
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><p>...Neil marvels at the way Charlie and Steven walk hand-in-hand down the street and no one bats an eyelid. He's torn between wanting to follow them for the rest of the evening, and wanting to go back to double triple quadruple check that Todd really is happy.<p>

And then he has no choice because he's swept up in the crowd, alternatively being trapped by bodies as they pass through his and ducking his way through the spaces between people. Even if he wanted to float above the crowd, he can't get enough of a run up to clear their heads.

That's how Neil finds himself in the middle of Brooklyn Bridge. That's how Neil finds himself in the intersection of two somewhat commonplace occurrences that should never, ever, ever happen at the same time, and yet right in this moment they're both happening to him.

The first occurrence is commonplace only to Neil, of course; a young man backs into his space, and he finds himself caught in the man's body. Fine. He's just been waylaid by nearly a thousand people on the street in the last five minutes alone.

The second occurrence is, unfortunately, more commonplace to the living; the man pulls a gun from his overcoat pocket, and feels the weight of it in his hands, as he looks down at the swirling black water below.

The intersection of the occurrences, however, is a one in a _this should never ever ever happen_ chance.

Neil doesn't know the man is holding a gun because he can't see him; they're facing in opposite directions. But he can feel the man's pulse racing, and the clamminess of his skin, the sweat beading on his back and behind his knees; he can feel a skittishness in the man's body, nervous energy, like he's drunk eight shots of coffee; he can hear the man's breath, loud in his ear; and then he can feel, feel the dull barrel of the gun pushed against the man's temple, pushed against _his _temple; and it all makes sense and he wishes it didn't.

A crowd gather in a semi-circle around the man, but the man doesn't turn around.

"Someone call the police."

"Just put the gun down, son."

"Oh my God, is he really going to - ?"

"Hey," says someone in the crowd, their voice clearer than the rest – an old lady in a long overcoat, but Neil knows it's really Mr Keating. "You don't need to do this."

"You don't understand," says the man; his voice is shaking, high and soft. "I'm going to die anyway."

_He's just a boy_, thinks Neil. _A kid with a gun and nothing to live for._

"You don't need to do this," repeats Mr Keating.

"_Don't tell me what to do_," the man yells. Neil feels the gun pressed deeper against his head. "_I'm sick of everyone telling me what to do."_

"So don't – " begins Keating, but he's cut off.

"And I'm _not going to take it anymore_."

_No_, says Neil. _No, no, no. You don't have to prove anything. It's not worth the point. Don't do this, don't – _

"It's too late now,_" _whispers the man. He pulls the trigger.

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><p>His body is on fire and drenched in sweat. His breaths are short and ragged as he clutches at the sheets, heart threatening to burst out of his chest. It's dark and confusing, so confusing – he doesn't know where he is.<p>

The open window bangs against the wooden frame again, loud and sharp.

Neil jumps, electrified; he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and stumbles to the window, legs barely able to hold his weight. He pushes the window open and stares out at the snow, the cold winter air cutting like ice at the sweat on his bare chest. At the edge of the garden, the trees shake their branches; a square of light on the white ground below lets him know his parents are still awake.

The crown of thorns and rosebuds sits on his bedside table. He grabs it tight in his hand. The sharp edges hurt him but he holds it tighter, and closes his eyes. He pulls the window shut, and collapses back on the bed.

He's alive.


End file.
